Mohs Surgery for Skin Cancer Treatment

What Is Mohs Surgery?

It’s important to understand that even though you may see signs of skin cancer on your body, the cancer is also growing beneath the surface of your skin. Other surgical techniques require surgeons to estimate the area that may be affected — which typically results in removing more tissue than necessary, or worse, not removing enough tissue and leaving some of the cancer behind.

With the Mohs surgery technique, your surgeon removes the cancer in thin layers. Each layer is examined under a microscope in an on-site lab before another layer is removed. By examining the layers of tissue, your surgeon will be able to pinpoint exactly which sections of skin are healthy and which are cancerous — allowing them to remove only the damaged tissue while leaving the rest intact.

Benefits of Mohs Surgery

There are many advantages to the Mohs surgery technique:

• It can be used to treat most types of skin cancer
• It's highly effective because it nearly guarantees the removal of all cancerous tissue
• Preserves healthy tissue
• May require little to no downtime
• Minimizes scarring and other cosmetic issues
• Typically requires only one procedure, including wound repair (making it more cost-effective and less physically and psychologically taxing on the patient)

What to Expect

Mohs surgery is an outpatient procedure that only requires local anesthesia (numbing of the affected area). Since the surgeon needs to evaluate each layer as it’s removed, your surgery may last for several hours. Depending on how much tissue needs to be removed, there are different ways to close and repair the wound.

After Mohs Surgery

You may experience mild, temporary bleeding, redness or discomfort immediately after your procedure. Your surgeon will give you detailed instructions about how to care for your wound and any other steps they’d like you to take at home as follow-up care.

Make sure you continue to get regular skin cancer screenings.